Somebody Interrupted a Street Fair With a Mass

I have often threatened, (insincerely, I hasten to add,) to just stop playing some loud hymn or postlude in mid-phrase, loud and unresolved, as a snotty protest at the din down below, (and to see if anyone noticed.)

Well, today, I did it inadvertently, absolutely not on purpose.

I finished the final hymn, (well, what we call "finished," two verses,) and was playing a brisk, short postlude, hadn't piled on anymore ranks than for the hymn which was a loud, moderately well sung, (for one verse, anyway,) one and stopped in mid, dissonant phrase and swung around on the bench, alarmed.

In all honesty, the noise was such that I actually thought something disastrous had occurred, that someone had fallen or had a seizure -- it was that deafening.

People wereliterally shouting greetings and farewells to each other across the nave, jokes were being told.... I just don't understand it, nor why it is allowed.

I have to find a way out of the funk I am falling in to.